Shades of Darkness Read online

  Shades of Darkness

  Darkness Book Three

  Nora Ash

  Contents

  Copyright

  Get in Touch

  Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Next Book

  Also by Nora Ash

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2016 by Nora Ash

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any and all likeness to trademarks, corporations or persons, dead or alive, is purely coincidental.

  Get in Touch

  Sign up for Nora Ash’s newsletter to receive updates about new books You can also get in touch via Facebook, or drop by her website.

  Summary

  Pain. Violation. Degradation.

  That’s what getting involved with two magic-welding rivals has brought me. And the longer I stay with them, the deeper I’m sucked into the infested web of corruption running through every layer of my city.

  I should try to escape—find a way out and away. No human can survive the demands of two such powerful men using her body as their battle ground.

  But they are the only key I have to saving my city from the powers threatening to lay it to ruin.

  * * *

  And when the rest of the supe community learns of my existence, my two protectors have to decide what's more important: their age-old strife... or my life.

  * * *

  Book 3 in Nora Ash’s erotic Paranormal Romance menage, Darkness. Each installment is novella length and ends in a cliffhanger.

  One

  Lightning

  Rage. Blistering, all-encompassing rage mixed with fear so overpowering Lightning’s knees nearly buckled as he stared at the note in his hand.

  The glowing “B” carved into her desk was as good as leaving a business card, and it made Lightning’s insides twist. Bright, the sociopathic supe who had risen out of nowhere two years ago to one of the top ranks in their hierarchy, had broken into Kathryn’s home and fucking kidnapped her.

  The anger was easy enough to deal with—he would just save it up until he found the scumbag, and then unleash it all in one, lethal round.

  The fear… the fear was not so easy to manage.

  He knew enough about Bright and the methods he’d used to climb the ladder for his stomach to knot at the thought of Kathryn—soft, breakable Kathryn—in his cruel hands.

  A deep snarl tore him from the horrific scenarios the mere thought produced, and he spun around just in time to see a large, dark-clad figure crouch into a defensive position by the window.

  “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll rip your throat out!”

  The Shade. The fucking Shade.

  Lightning’s hands flexed with desire to close around his enemy’s neck, and the rage from realizing that his claimed human had been abducted took over, spiking his adrenaline with a primal urge to kill.

  The note rustled with his hand’s movement. Lightning paused, muscles tensed to strike. The note.

  If he wanted Kathryn back, he needed The Shade.

  A growl he couldn’t control forced its way out of his chest as he straightened from his hunched pose. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was disappointment of not being able to rip into his enemy, or if it was from the sickening knowledge that he needed The Shade’s help to reclaim his human.

  “Bright’s got her.”

  The same shiver he’d felt himself when he spotted the carved “B” went through The Shade.

  “What?” Anger clearly won out for the villain. His eyes blazed as he shifted, pulling the swords mounted on his back out of their scabbards. “What? What did you do?”

  “Nothing, you imbecile. I just got here and found this.” He pointed to the desk, where the carved letter shone faintly in the darkened loft.

  The Shade glanced to the desk. He clenched his hands around the sword handles, making a barely detectable tremor travel down the blades.

  “He left a note.” Lightning dropped the piece of paper on the desk and stepped back to let his rival inspect it.

  The Shade cast him a dark look before he stepped over and snatched it up.

  His mouth spasmed once as his eyes flickered over the text. When he looked back up, the seething anger was mixed with concern—a rather startling expression on the infamous supe. “How did he know?”

  Lightning rubbed a hand over his scalp, trying to ease the unpleasant prickle underneath the mask. All his hyped up senses were on full alert, making his suit feel restrictive.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he came to check her out because of that fucking article, maybe he has spies at the mayor’s mansion and got curious when he saw her with me. Right now, it doesn’t really matter. He’s got her, and if we don’t get her back…” He let the rest of the sentence hang suspended in the already tense air between them. There was no need to complete it—they both knew their society’s rules. If a supe relinquished ownership of their human, it was the end of the road for her. It was the only way of ensuring their secrets were not exposed to the human world. If they didn’t show up for the Council meeting, it would be the same as renouncing their claim.

  “He has some balls.” The Shade’s growl was low and filled with the promise of murder. “After I’m done with you, I will rip them off before I kill him.”

  As much as Lightning’s body ached to rise to the challenge, he clamped his jaw shut around his responding snarl in an attempt to stay in control of himself. “That’s great. And after you’re ‘done with me,’ how are you going to convince the Council that she belongs to you? That’s why he’s got the balls to do this—technically, she doesn’t belong to either of us without the other. The fucker knows we have to both show up and explain how we’re sharing her, if we want her back.”

  And he also knew that it would be a cold day in hell before either of them admitted to being bound so tight by a mere human that they’d deign to work together, even for the duration of a Council meeting. Lightning glared at his enemy. Fuck. Not only would waltzing in there, hand in hand with The goddamn Shade, be the most humiliating thing he’d yet to endure—it would also broadcast with unwavering clarity that Kathryn was his one weak point. She’d never be safe again.

  But if they didn’t, she was as good as dead.

  “Fuck!”

  “She was all mine, until you marked her again.” The Shade flexed his hands, probably to ease the same sort of agitation as was coursing through Lightning’s veins at that moment. “He would never have gotten away with kidnapping a claimed human who only carried one mark.”

  Lightning narrowed his eyes into slits. “I claimed her first, if you recall. Don’t remind me how you forced her to submit to you, or I’ll forget I need you to get her back.”

  “If you had marked her properly, I could never have claimed her. You were too weak to take her, and you are too weak to give her what she needs. You want her back? She wasn’t yours to begin with. You left her—twice!”

  Guilt—that uncomfortable, new sensation in his gut—pulled on Lightning at The Shade’s words. Yeah, he’d left her, because he was scared of her power over him, and now she was in danger. Again. The girl was a fucking magnet for trouble, and he should have stayed by her side, fear of the churning emotions she brought out in him be damned. Know
ing she was in the hands of someone like Bright was much, much worse.

  The guilt and shame tipped into anger, and he gratefully grabbed on with both hands. Anger, he knew how to deal with.

  Lightning bared his teeth at The Shade. “She was mine when you took advantage of her fear and marked her, and she is mine now. And once she is safe, I will ensure that my mark on her neck is the only valid claim on her.”

  The Shade’s nostrils pulled up with his responding snarl, but he nodded in acceptance of the challenge. “Once she is safe. But I’m warning you now—this time, I’m not holding back. You fight me for her, and you will die.”

  Despite his anger and the primal instincts pounding in his head, Lightning couldn’t help but roll his eyes. They had fought more than once over the years, and there had never been a clear winner—which was the only reason they were both still alive. The hatred between them was too deep for mercy.

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself. Until then, we need to focus on Bright. He isn’t going to make it easy.”

  The Shade nodded again and crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s undoubtedly hoping to humiliate us, possibly because he’s heard I’ve been asking about him. And I suspect he’ll attempt to convince the rest of the Council that because of the unique nature of her mark, our claims are invalid.”

  Lightning paused. The Shade was investigating Bright, too? “Why are you asking questions about him?”

  The Shade leveled a condescending stare at him. “You think because I don’t care who casts themselves up to be our leaders, I don’t take notice when rumors start to circulate of a ‘new order’? Everything seems to come back to him. I imagine you’re doing your own snooping.”

  Lightning nodded and pursed his lips. “The only way Kathryn’s getting out of there alive is if we acknowledge that we share her.”

  The Shade’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t object. “I will meet you at the Arena,” he growled, stepping back toward the window without taking his eyes off Lightning. A dark flash, and he was gone.

  It seemed it was, indeed, a cold day in hell.

  Neither one of them paused to consider why they were willing to sacrifice their reputation over a human girl.

  Two

  The room was cold. Cold and stark, with white walls, white linen on the single, metal framed bed, and a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There were no windows to look through, and nothing to break up the white monotony.

  Bright hadn’t hurt me, apart from not being too gentle when he grabbed me from my home—and again when he shoved me into this room—but he hadn’t told me what he had planned for me, either.

  I thought the mark on my neck would keep me safe from other superhumans, but apparently, I’d been wrong. And so had both Lightning and The Shade.

  So now, instead of being safely at home, watching TV and fretting about the two men who had claimed me, I was locked up God only knew where and kept prisoner by an unquestionably bad man.

  I couldn’t have been in there longer than a day at most, but already, my mind was starting to crack. I’d been scared ever since he revealed himself in my apartment, and the non-stop onslaught of adrenaline to my already frazzled nervous system was breaking down what little coping mechanisms I had for dangerous situations.

  He’d said he would take me to a Council meeting to see if Lightning and The Shade would show up to claim me in front of everyone, but I didn’t know when that meeting would be—nor did I know if either supe would even show up. Bright had made it sound like it would be shameful for them to admit to sharing me. I didn’t know why, but regardless, I was pretty certain at least Lightning wouldn’t go through any embarrassment to save me. He’d made it plenty clear that I wasn’t all that important to him, after he’d bedded me.

  That left The Shade.

  A nervous flutter made me press my hand against my stomach. After what I’d discovered about his support of the mayor’s secret weapons project, I wasn’t so sure being saved by him would leave me much better off.

  No, that wasn’t true. I’d much rather be in the hands of a manipulative villain who seemed to care—if not about me, then about what was between my legs—than be killed because neither of my two lovers cared enough about me to endure some embarrassment.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything about my situation one way or the other—I literally just had to sit here, in the same panties and t-shirt I’d been wearing when I was kidnapped, and hope that either Lightning or The Shade were better men than they seemed.

  The door creaking open made me sit up on the bed with a start, heart pounding in my chest.

  I’d been staring up at the ceiling, exhausted, hungry, and generally all-round miserable, for what felt like hours, until I’d finally dozed off.

  Adrenaline cleared the fog of sleep as I pulled as far into the corner of my bed as I could get while staring at the door.

  Bright stepped through, dragging a chair along with a mocking smile on his thin lips. “Don’t worry, little mouse, I’m not going to ravage you. There’s no need to look so scared—fat girls don’t do it for me. But I can see that it’s my esteemed colleagues’ thing, so why don’t we talk a bit about that, hmm?”

  For once, being insulted about my weight didn’t bother me in the least. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I drew a breath of relief when he said he wasn’t interested in me sexually. The possibility that I might get raped during my stay with Bright had definitely crossed my mind. After all, from what I knew of superhumans, they had a seriously hyped-up sex drive.

  I eyed the villain carefully as he put the chair down and straddled it, leaning both arms on its back.

  “So, Kathryn, what do you say you and I have a little chat?”

  I remained silent, not wanting to show him how scared I truly was.

  Bright narrowed his blue eyes in warning. “Do I need to remind you that it’s in your best interest to stay on my good side? When I ask a question, I expect an answer, got it? I may not be allowed to harm you just yet, but once your two masters fail to claim you, your worthless body is all mine to dispose of. And if you don’t cooperate, I’m going to make that very, very slow and painful. But if you do, maybe—just maybe—I’ll let you live.”

  My lips quivered. I had no doubt he would make good on his threat, if Lightning or The Shade didn’t save me… and I didn’t have high hopes they would. But I didn’t believe there was any chance he’d let me live—the best I could hope for was likely a swift death.

  “What do you want to know?”

  A self-satisfied smile curved his mouth, giving it a cruel slant. “That’s much better. I knew you’d come around. What I want to know, Kathryn, is how you happened to end up with not one, but two claiming marks on that breakable little neck of yours?”

  I bit my lip. As much as I wanted to give myself the best chances of survival, I didn’t want to tell him anything that could help him with whatever diabolical plan he had going on with the mayor. And, I realized, much to my surprise, I didn’t want to give away anything that might hurt Lightning or The Shade. Hopefully, telling him how they had claimed me wouldn’t do either.

  “Lightning claimed me first, to keep me safe after an article I wrote, but he didn’t… didn’t sleep with me. The Shade found me in an alley one night, and when I showed him the mark to warn him off, he decided to claim me fully himself. I think mainly to annoy Lightning.”

  Bright barked a surprised laugh. “Ha, I bet that worked well. Devious devil, that Shade. And I take it Lightning then decided to lay a full claim down, once he realized? The dual mark you’ve got doesn’t suggest any half-claims.”

  I nodded, fighting down a blush from knowing that he was fully aware what both men had done to solidify their claims.

  “Interesting. I don’t think anyone ever realized you could layer marks like this, if the initial bite isn’t accompanied by penetration. Undoubtedly because no one’s ever been interested enough in a human to even consider sharing.” Bright leve
led a curious look at me. “What is it about you that’s got those two morons degrading themselves like this?”

  My cheeks flooded with the heat I’d been trying to hold back, partly from humiliation and partly from anger. I’d had my own, private thoughts about not measuring up to the divine specimens who had shared my bed last night, but being told that they were degrading themselves by being with me was laying it on pretty thick. Okay, so I wasn’t a vision of beauty, but it’s not like I had begged them for their attention. Quite the contrary.

  “I don’t know,” I gritted out between clenched teeth.

  “Me either.” Bright seemed completely unaware of, or disinterested in, my angry tone. “You’re plain as plain can be, and yet two of the most powerful supes claimed ownership over you.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps it’s not about you, and they simply got caught up in their eternal rivalry. I suppose that is the likely explanation.”

  I didn’t answer him, but I quietly agreed. What other reason was there, really? Certainly, they could both get all the women they pleased, whenever they wanted. Sure, Lightning’s initial half-mark might have stemmed from pity, but everything that had followed? Rivalry was the likely answer to that mystery.

  Said mark pulsed faintly as if in protest, but the dark wave of melancholy and self-pity that acceptance brought numbed even that.

  I was nothing more than a passing fancy for either of them—a novelty to fuel their everlasting strife. It hurt more than it should have.